


one word to change our world

by giidas



Category: Inception (2010), Tenet (2020)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, the boys find out about Inversion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26444746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giidas/pseuds/giidas
Summary: On an otherwise unremarkable Sunday morning, both their worlds shift on their axis when Arthur tells Eames about the phone call he got the day before.A time, a place, and one word.
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 65





	one word to change our world

**Author's Note:**

> i need like an 80k fic about Arthur and Eames meeting The Protagonist and Neil and going on a heist together, but because i am also about instant gratification, i wrote this instead. <3

Eames is reading.

Eames has been reading the same page for way too long, if you asked Arthur. His face stays unimpressed, but from time to time he makes a disgruntled noise and mumbles something under his breath.

Arthur has been waiting for him to finish this page for  _ forever. _

“Eames,” he finally says, his foot tapping a fast beat on the floor.

“Yes, darling,” Eames responds without raising his eyes from that fucking newspaper.

The foot tapping intensifies.

Eames raises his eyebrows and looks at Arthur.

_ "Yes, _ darling,” he repeats.

“I got a call.” Arthur looks at him, enjoying the weight of Eames’ full attention.

“Uh huh.”

“I got a call yesterday,” Arthur starts again and at Eames’ raised eyebrow, continues, “I didn’t tell you then because I needed to check the info I got, look for confirmation from alternate sources, but Eames, if it’s true, it’s gonna be big. Huge.”

Eames folds the newspaper and let’s the front legs of his chair connect with the floor, leans his elbows on the table, and narrowly misses knocking over his empty cup of coffee.

“How huge?” he asks.

“Bigger than— bigger than Dreamshare, maybe,” Arthur replies, and fails to keep his voice as steady as he’d want it.

“Arthur?” Eames asks, concern in his expression, in the stiffening of his shoulders. “Darling, you look spooked.”

Arthur nods and pushes away from the table, gets up and takes Eames’ hand to make him follow. Eames gives him a wide berth when he’s in research mode, doesn’t intrude on his process, as he calls it, so the explosion of papers with notes and two open laptops in the living room get a raised eyebrow. Arthur is all about chaos, but in a controlled way, and this is not that.

Arthur sees his look and shrugs his shoulders. “Couldn’t sleep.”

He sits himself down in the middle of the couch, both laptops in easy reach, and tugs Eames to sit down next to him.

“Okay, what am I looking at here,” Eames asks, scanning one random piece of printer paper scribbled with notes and diagrams.

Arthur takes a deep breath and says, “Inversion.”

Eames keeps looking at the paper, then turns and looks at him. “Beg your pardon?”

“It’s— “ but explaining it seems beyond him now, even though he understands the science of it after a full night of research and knows Eames would get it too. He cues up a video and presses play.

They both watch a man in full gear, back to the camera, moving—

“Uh, Arthur, why is the video rew—”

And then there’s the other man. He’s wearing a bespoke suit and is moving as one should.

“What the fuck,” Eames says.

He keeps watching the ensuing fight, the absolute insanity of it, with slightly parted lips, with wide eyes. His fingers dig into the meat of Arthur’s thigh.

The video ends and then Arthur fumbles with the controls and plays it  _ backwards, _ at the same speed.

Eames leans forward and presses pause only ten seconds in. His fingers are shaking.

“Okay, so— when you said huge, you were not exaggerating, love,” he says into the silence of their living room.

“Yeah.”

“I’m almost scared to ask but: what does this have to do with us?” He’s looking at Arthur and it only takes him two seconds to groan and cover his eyes with a big hand. “What did you  _ do, _ Arthur.”

“Nothing!” Arthur insists vehemently. “I swear, Eames, it is not my fault this time, and as far as I can tell, it’s not yours either.” He checked and re-checked their seven last jobs, two years of their shared history, and couldn’t find anything that—

“Inception,” Eames says, in a weary voice befitting an 80 year old man.

“You can’t blame everything on  _ one _ job, Eames.”

“And yet!”

Arthur rolls his eyes.

Eames takes a deep breath. “So, the call you got.”

“Yeah, someone wanted to book us for a job, but they refused to give me a name or an alias. He gave me a time and a place and one fucking word.”

“Oh no,” Eames says. A sure way to hook Arthur, get him into a research spiral. Give him just enough to intrigue him, and nothing more.

“Yeah,” Arthur says with a grimace.

“So, this Inversion,” Eames prompts.

Arthur starts explaining the science behind what was supposed to be just a concept, an unproven untested theory. He tells Eames about the reversed entropy of objects, how they then move backwards in time while the rest of the world continues on its course. Tells him that he has no idea how it happens, that even his contacts on the dark web balked at the mention of it when he asked.

Eames is biting a cuticle on his thumb when Arthur is finished. Arthur tsks and Eames huffs and stops.

“Did the voice have an accent?” Eames asks, apropos of nothing.

“Yes, he was American,” Arthur tells him and raises an eyebrow, “why?”

“Might’ve gotten a call from a blabbering Brit about something that, in hindsight, sounded just like this.”

Arthur huffs out a breath and closes his eyes for a count of three.

“And you didn’t think to mention it?”

“It sounded insane! I thought he was having me on!” He looks genuinely sheepish, so Arthur knocks their knees together and then shifts so his side is pressed into Eames’. He lets his head fall back and stares at the ceiling.

“I know what you mean.”

Eames sorts through Arthur’s notes and when he’s done, leans back and nudges Arthur with an elbow.

“I don’t want to get mixed up in this,” he says.

Arthur rolls his eyes. “You mean you don’t want  _ me  _ to get mixed up in this.”

“No,” Eames corrects gently, “us. I don’t want  _ us  _ to get mixed up in this.”

“I know,” Arthur tells him, voice soft. “But.”

“Yeah, _but."_ It looks like their brand of insane. “What was the word?”

“Tenet.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading <3 comments and kudos are always appreciated (as well as sharing of headcanons or anything else, really!)


End file.
